Submitted photoColumbus Bakery fans wave during the Christmas Eve 2009 wait for warm, fresh loaves. The line at Columbus, on Pearl Street, is a Syracuse tradition.

Syracuse, NY -- Jimmy Retzos can't give you a weather forecast for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but he can make this prediction:

"Whatever the weather is, the line will be the same," said the owner of Columbus Bakery, 502 Pearl St., Syracuse. "I've been here 38 years, since I was 14, that's 38 Christmases, and we've had snow, we've had rain, we've had 50 degrees and sunny. The line is always the same."

The line of people waiting, sometimes an hour or more, for warm, fresh loaves of Columbus bread for Christmas is one of Syracuse's great culinary traditions. So is the near universal good cheer that accompanies it.

No one grumbles, complains or cuts into the Columbus Christmas line. They even enjoy it.

It helps that the bakery now has an adjoining deli, where you can grab a bite, and that the nearby Freedom of Espresso has coffee, and that there's Italian food down the street at Fralli's Italian Kitchen and wine for sale at Vinomania.

Columbus will be open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Christmas Eve, and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Christmas Day, or until the bread runs out. The lines, by the way, tend to grow when the counter runs out of bread. When that happens, it can take up to 45 minutes for new loaves to appear.

Retzos has this advice: Come early. His bakers start at 4 a.m., and they'll leave the door open before 6 a.m. if you want to grab that early-bird special.